7.  The applicant, Mr Bensaid Nakach, is a Moroccan national, who was born in 1944. At the time of the events complained of, he was detained in a secure institution, the Forensic Psychiatric Centre “Veldzicht” in Balkbrug, Netherlands; in July 2002 he was transferred to the secure institution “De Kijvelanden” in Poortugaal, near Rotterdam, Netherlands.
8.  On 7 February 1994 the applicant hit his wife, Mrs K., on the head, the shoulders and the back with the blunt edge of a meat cleaver, choked her and kicked her in the face. Mrs K. was injured but survived.
9.  On 10 October 1994 the Breda Regional Court convicted the applicant of attempted manslaughter. In the light of a psychiatric report which found the applicant's mental powers to be deficient and the chance of his re-offending to be high, it sentenced him to one year's imprisonment and ordered his placement at the Government's disposal (terbeschikkingstelling van de regering) with confinement in a secure institution.
10.  On 10 October 1995 the 's-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the Regional Court.
11.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law (cassatie) with the Supreme Court (Hoge Raad), which was dismissed on 1 October 1996.
12.  The time which the applicant had spent in detention on remand counting towards the sentence, the order placing the applicant at the Government's disposal therefore went into force on that date.
13.  The placement order was prolonged for an additional two years in September 1998.
14.  On 29 September 2000 the Breda Regional Court extended the applicant's placement order for a further two years.
15.  The applicant appealed to the Arnhem Court of Appeal (gerechtshof).
16.  A hearing was held on 9 April 2001. The Government state that the registrar (griffier) took notes and that these were kept in the case file.
17.  The Court of Appeal gave its decision on 23 April 2001; it found that the applicant's continued placement at the Government's disposal remained necessary in the interest of public safety and accordingly upheld the decision of the Breda Regional Court. Summaries of an expert report and of statements made at the hearing by an expert and by the applicant's counsel are contained in this decision; they cover approximately a page and a half.
18.  On 28 June 2001 the applicant's counsel wrote to the Court of Appeal asking for a copy of the official record of the hearing of 9 April.
19.  A reply dated 11 July 2001, on stationery bearing the letterhead of the vice-president of the Court of Appeal in charge of criminal cases (the signature is illegible), contains the following passage:
“In reply to your request of 28 June last I must inform you that no official records are usually made of hearings of the criminal division concerning prolongations of placements at the Government's disposal. The reason is that no ordinary remedy lies against the decisions concerned and the workload of the Court of Appeal does not admit of structural activities 'just to fill the archives' (voor het archief). For that reason, also, the decisions in question tend to render the statements made more extensively than would be the case if in fact an official record were prepared (in addition).”